SD Beer Week: Time to eat?

He owns the craft-beer bazaar Mike’s Liquor in Ramona. He and I agree summer is less interesting; it’s all about light beers with teeny alcohol levels.

Now I don’t have stellar beer-snob bonafides like our
U-T beer reporter Peter Rowe
, or U-T Superdiners Brandon Hernández and Dr. Bill Sysak – I don’t like goopy, sour beers that all the
real
connoisseurs will be talking about when
San Diego Beer Week
kicks off (Friday through Nov. 11).
Info:
sdbw.org
.

But I go weak for the high-alcohol, chocolate-y comforting stuff with character, released for this season of long nights.

And I’m utterly overwhelmed by
Mike’s Liquor
– set up like a department store, except the shelves are stocked with Belgian-inspired
Lost Abbey
bottles (my fave local brewers).

Among the 800 different beers there you can’t miss Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew from Delaware’s Dogfish Head, labeled with the album’s cover. There’s also the uncontrollable Technical Nuclear Penguin, from Scotland’s BrewDog -- once the highest-level beer in the world at 32 percent, now $129 at this Ramona liquor store. (It’s butterscotch-y, heather-y, thick as a brandy, says Peter Rowe.)

All this to say, this food writer likes her (winter) beer! So let me put on my goggles and tell you which Beer Week-related events catch my eye.

-
Sunday
brings us the Societe Brewing dinner at a Kearny Mesa pub with a craft-beer cult following,
O’Brien’s
. For $50 that gang’s all there: Apprentice, Pupil and Butcher Imperial stout paired with dishes like curried lamb and Lindsey's Mac n' Cheese made with Societe’s Belgian pale ale, that Harlot.

-
A giant draw on
Monday, Nov. 5
is The Cellar-bration at the Linkery. But for obvious reasons I'm recommending the
Linkery’s Bivalves and Belgians, Lost Abbey Style
, on Wednesday, Nov. 7. Local clams and mussels for $10, beef-tallow fries, a specialty they’ve been pushing lately, and $4 pours of my suds obsession (I’ve had so much Devotion and Red Barn).

-
Monday, Nov. 5
I’m pretty sure I’ll be out in Rancho Bernardo, at
Urge Gastropub
. Their $50, four-course Lost Abbey Beer Dinner and Pint Night has that most excellent beer paired with chef Marc Liautard’s work, like a duck bacon salad teamed with Lost Abbey’s Judgment Day Ale, brewed with raisins.

-
And you can't beat the
First Avenue Bar & Grill's beer dinner with Hess Brewing
on
Wednesday, Nov. 7
. For $45 it's five courses, including an artisanal plate of spiny lobster with root-vegetable risotto and uni butter! Paired with West Coaster IPA (Michael Hess and Head Brewer Nate Sampson will explain all that.)